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Scientific context and criticism
Sapolsky's scientific work on stress is widely accepted. His conclusion in Determined, that there is no free will at all, is a philosophical position: many philosophers (especially compatibilists) and some reviewers argue that the scientific findings he cites do not rule out every meaningful sense of free will or moral responsibility.
Life
Robert Sapolsky is an American neuroendocrinologist and primatologist, a professor of biology and of neurology and neurosurgery at Stanford University. He studied at Harvard and earned his PhD at Rockefeller University. For more than two decades he studied a troop of wild baboons in Kenya, tracking how social rank and stress affect health, and in the lab he studied how stress hormones damage neurons. His popular books explain stress (Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, 1994), the biology behind human behaviour from milliseconds to millennia (Behave, 2017), and his case that free will does not exist (Determined, 2023). He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1987.
The system
- Behaviour explained across time scales: neurons, hormones, childhood, culture, evolution.
- Chronic stress as a biological cost of social life.
- Hard determinism: no room for free will, so blame and punishment should be rethought.
Key works
- Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers (1994; 3rd ed. 2004) Amazon
- A Primate's Memoir (2001)
- Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst (2017) Amazon
- Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will (2023) Amazon
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Where to start
- Behave is the summary of his thinking; his Stanford lecture course 'Human Behavioral Biology' is free online.
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Why does Robert Sapolsky argue in Determined that there is no free will, and what are the main objections?Ask Orin this question